David Dimbleby

David Dimbleby (born 28 October 1938) is a British journalist and a presenter of current affairs and political programmes, now best known for the BBC's long running Question Time television series. He is the son of Richard Dimbleby and elder brother of Jonathan Dimbleby. Long involved in the coverage of national events, Dimbleby has anchored the BBC's coverage of every general election since 1979 and United States presidential elections.[1] He has also presented and narrated documentary series on architecture and history.

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Dimbleby was born in Surrey,[2] the son of the journalist and Second World Warwar correspondentRichard Dimbleby, by his marriage to Dilys Thomas, from Wales. His younger brother is Jonathan Dimbleby, also a television current affairs presenter.[3] David Dimbleby was educated at two independent schools, the Glengorse School in Battle, East Sussex,[4] and Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey, where he was a contemporary of the journalist Adam Raphael. The two younger Dimblebys both made their television débuts in the 1950s in the BBC's first holiday programme Passport, at a time when the whole family would visit resorts in Switzerland or Brittany. A holiday programme for the home counties, called No Passport, was also broadcast.

Dimbleby joined the BBC as a news reporter in Bristol in the 1960s and has appeared in news programmes since 1962, early on co-presenting the televised version of the school quiz Top of the Form, and was a reporter on the BBC's coverage of the 1964 general election with his father as linkman.[5] Richard Dimbleby died the following year.

On 24 July 1967, Dimbleby was one of seventy signatories to The Times advertisement advocating the decriminalisation of cannabis use, which had been written by campaigner Stephen Abrams.[6][7] An incident in 1969 led to Dimbleby, then freelance, being called in by the BBC's Director of Television. During U.S. President Richard Nixon's visit to the UK, a reference by Dimbleby to UK and US government heads' "'expensively hired" press secretaries "whose job is to disguise the truth" was given much attention by the British press.[8]

He became involved in a number of projects that combined his established role as presenter and interviewer with documentary making. An early example of this was Yesterday's Men (1971), a film which the BBC recognises "ridiculed" the Labour opposition and led to a major conflict between the Corporation and the Labour Party;[9] Dimbleby had his name removed from the credits because of the concessions that were made.[10] In 1974, he became the presenter of Panorama, which had been presented by his father.

Dimbleby anchored the BBC's overnight coverage of the 1979 general election, and continued in this role for the following ten general elections.[1][11] In addition to election coverage, he also hosts BBC Budget specials, and was a presenter of the BBC early evening weekday current affairs series Nationwide. During the same period (beginning in 1979), Dimbleby has also been the anchor for the BBC's European Elections results programmes and in 2008 and 2012, anchored the BBC's coverage of the US Election night.

Dimbleby was the main presenter of the BBC's political series This Week Next Week (1984–88),[11] broadcast on Sunday early afternoons, as a competitor to ITV's established Weekend World series. This Week Next Week was replaced in 1988 by the On the Record, a political series presented until 1993 by his younger brother, Jonathan Dimbleby.[12] Meanwhile, he continued to work in documentaries, including The White Tribe of Africa (1979), an award-winning four-part history of South Africa's Afrikaans community and the rise of apartheid, An Ocean Apart (1988), an examination of the history of Anglo-American relations, and Rebellion! (1999), a history of Britain's troubled relations with Zimbabwe.

Dimbleby served as chairman of the BBC's Thursday evening topical debate programme Question Time from 1994 until 2018. One of the most memorable moments from Question Time was when Dimbleby accidentally referred to Robin Cook as "Robin Cock", to which Cook responded by jokingly referring to Dimbleby as "David Bumblebee".[13]

There were reports in 2004 that Dimbleby was shortlisted for the Chairmanship of the BBC.[17] However, the position was eventually awarded to Michael Grade. As early as 1987, he was a contender for the position of Director General of the BBC (losing out to Michael Checkland) and for the chairmanship in the Corporation's tumultuous period following 2001,[18] which went to Gavyn Davies. He has instead remained, according to Mark Duguid for the BFI's screenonline website, best known for his "gravitas, journalistic integrity and consummate professionalism" and as "a paragon of impartiality"[11] as a narrator and moderator, of British politics.

In 2005, he hosted a BBC One series, A Picture of Britain, celebrating British and Irish paintings, poetry, music, and landscapes. In June 2007 he wrote and presented a follow-up, the BBC series, How We Built Britain, in which he explored the history of British architecture by visiting a region of Britain and its historic buildings each week. David Dimbleby also presented a new series on BBC One, Seven Ages of Britain. In early editions of the programme, he looked at the Bayeux Tapestry and exhibits to do with Thomas Becket.

On 12 November 2009, Dimbleby missed his first Question Time in over fifteen years, having been taken to hospital as a precaution after being briefly knocked out by a rearingbullock at his farm in Sussex.[19]

Dimbleby hosted the EU referendum results show on BBC One, BBC News and BBC World News overnight on 23–24 June 2016, when the UK made history by becoming the first country to vote to leave the European Union; in which he quoted to the country when the BBC released its forecast for a Leave win at 0440 BST:

“

Well at twenty minutes to five we can now say the decision taken in 1975 by this country to join the Common Market has been reversed by this referendum to leave the EU. We are absolutely clear now that there is no way that the Remain side can win. It looks as if the gap is going to be something like 52 to 48 so a four point lead for leaving the EU and that is the result of this referendum which has been preceded by weeks and months of argument and dispute and all the rest of it. The British people have spoken and the answer is: we're out!

On 17 June 2018, the BBC announced Dimbleby would leave Question Time after 25 years at the end of the year.[23] On 7 December 2018, the BBC announced that Fiona Bruce would take over presenting duties from January 2019.

Despite the brothers presenting election coverage on competing channels, when asked in an interview about rival ITV's plans to include a riverboat party with the likes of Kevin Spacey and Richard Branson in their broadcast, David Dimbleby commented "They've got Jonathan Dimbleby, what do they need Kevin Spacey for?"[24]